Male and female he created them - christian.org.uk

1 Male and female he created themThe Christian InstituteAnnual Review 2018 Contents 3 Welcome 4 Male and female he created them 6 Marriage and the family 8 Religious liberty 10 Education 11 Citizenship 12 More good news13 Developing our people14 ..Equipping16 Meet the team18 Teaching and meetings 20 How we are managed 21 Summary of financial information 22 What we believe 30 Thanks 31 Basis of faithThe Christian Institute is a registered charity whose main object is the furtherance and promotion of the Christian Religion in the United Kingdom and elsewhere .Registered in England as a charity.

2 Charity No. 100 4774. Company No. 263 4440. A charity registered in Scotland. Charity No. SC039220 Copyright The Christian Institute 2018 | Printed in July 2018 The Christian Institute, Wilberforce House, 4 Park Road, Gosforth Business Park, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE12 8DG0191 281 5664 | | JOHN BURN 4 Male and female he created themBY COLIN HART So God created man in his own image,in the image of God he created him;male and female he created them. GENESIS 1:27We are made in the image of God either as male or female . It s fixed at our conception.

3 This is a very basic truth of the historic biblical Christian faith. Because of the Fall, the whole of creation is subject to decay. There is death, disease and disability. Things are not as they ought to be. One aspect of the Fall is that people can passionately believe things that are false, despite evidence to the contrary. People suffering with anorexia falsely believe they are overweight. Their mind says one thing, their body another. We all know it would be harmful to affirm this belief. But the equivalent happens all the time with transsexuals. The Government wants us to affirm the belief of a man who imagines himself to be a woman, despite that claim being denied by every cell of his body.

4 Parents even those who are not Christians are increasingly alarmed by the gender ideology being promoted in schools. Children are being told to treat boys as if they are girls in some cases. Ofsted has been strongly criticised in the press over a couple of inspections that rated schools as inadequate for failing to cover transsexual rights from the age of four. The Welsh Government is proposing full-blown LGBT education. Guidance from the Scottish Government circulated to 5schools says that parents should not be told if their daughter is to share changing or sleeping facilities with a boy who says he is a girl.

5 Humanly speaking, things are going to get worse before they get better. We will need to make our case calmly but firmly. These are important matters for prayer and we need great wisdom. Christians love people even when we strongly disagree with them. That s what Jesus Christ taught. Sometimes truly loving someone means we must disagree with them. It is not loving for us to give the impression that the Christ we serve is happy with someone living as the opposite sex. Instead, we must call people to major difficulty for Christian believers is the expectation that we will use feminine pronouns for a man who says he is a woman, or vice versa.

6 This puts us on the spot and asks us to endorse sin in a way that doesn't normally happen in conversation. The difference between he and she is only a single letter. But it s a letter that makes all the difference in the world. The difference between truth and a lie. We respect all people, including those who believe they are the opposite sex. But lying would mean the Christian believer commits sin. As Luther said, to go against conscience is neither right nor safe . Believers have been here before. Athanasius insisted that Christ was begotten not made. Arians said the opposite Christ was made, not begotten.

7 Which view you held all boiled down to a single letter in a Greek word. Only one letter between truth and a lie, between orthodoxy and heresy, between Christ who can save and a Christ who has no power to save. In the West, Christians are not being stopped from believing that Christ is God. But there are attempts to compel us to say things that aren t true and which we therefore don t believe about a person s sex. These attempts are wrong and it s wrong for us to go along with them. God has ensured that his image in men and women survived the Fall, though that image is marred.

8 The complementary differences between men and women are God s design. And God is glorified as we live this out and bear his Hart,Director6 Marriage and the familyTRANSSEXUALITY During 2017 there was growing promotion of transsexuality in our society. This is a major challenge to biblical beliefs about marriage and the family. More and more Christians parents, teachers, schools and churches have contacted us for Sharon James, our Social Policy Analyst, has spoken to Christian audiences in the UK and further afield, equipping them to argue for the biblical position. Through our Legal Defence Fund, our Solicitor Advocate Sam Webster has assisted churches and other Christian charities in understanding their legal rights.

9 He has also helped many people in difficulty at work over this John Denning, our Education Officer, has offered practical assistance to parents concerned about the promotion of gender ideology in Institute has also spoken out in the media and sought to provide a biblical response to the issue at meetings all around the country. Politicians are considering liberalising the law to make it even easier to change legal sex. This is despite widespread anxiety about the impact on the health and wellbeing of children, and about the serious implications for free Prime Minister, Theresa May, wants a system of self-declaration without any involvement from doctors or having to live as the opposite sex for two years, as the law currently has launched a consultation on the proposals.

10 The Scottish Government's November 2017 consultation paper even proposed reducing the age for a legal sex change to just 16. The consultation closed in March 2018, and we responded as well as encouraging our supporters to do Scottish Government also funded and endorsed guidance instructing schools to accommodate trans young people, even when doing so cuts across the rights of other young people or parents. Radical gender ideology is adversely impacting children. Speaking out on transsexualism: The Institute s Social Policy Analyst Dr Sharon James, Education Officer John Denning and Solicitor Advocate Sam BANSWe are very concerned about the Welsh and Scottish Governments plans to criminalise parents who gently smack their children.